What Keeps You Awake At Night?

One

I'm sitting here in a puddle of my own sweat. My heart feels like its going to fall out of my chest. Another night of the flashbacks, the nightmares, the memories. They continuously come back, night after night. I am waiting for these nights to stop but they seem like they are getting worse and worse.

I take my t-shirt off and try to cool my body off. I shift my stare out the window. I look into the sky, but I see nothing. No stars, no moon in sight. All there is, is blackness. Emptiness is all I can see. My heart aches for the person I used to be, but now all I am is the night sky, dark and empty.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Fuck." I say deeply under my breath. I wipe the sleep away from my eyes, roll out of bed sloppily and head to the shower.

Nothing is special about today. Same ole day being a junior at the most shittiest school in town, with the most entitled kids i've probably ever met. All I do is sit and observe from a distance. No one ever notices me and I like it that way.

"Darius!" I forgot I had been sitting in class. "Is your mind here or somewhere else?" I'm in Mr. Hernandez's history class, where I am literally bored to death everyday.

I raised my hand silently and continued on to daydream.

Socializing really isn't my thing. I don't go to parties, I don't date, I don't do anything really but go to school and come home. Everyone at my school thinks i'm some kind of weird kid who is a loner and doesn't speak and they're completely correct.

I'm pretty average, or sometimes below according to everyone else, in this school full of pretentious kids.

"Class today we have a new student, Tiffany." Mr. Hernandez said not sounding the least bit of interest in her arrival. "Please welcome her."

Everyone said their unenthusiastic and fake "hey's" and "hello's" and I eyed her as she took her seat.

She had curly brown hair, honey brown skin and chunky glasses that covered half of her face. She is cute.

"Okay class today were going to be learning about the great depression." Everyone groaned in dismay and I rolled my eyes and couldn't wait to get out of here.

After sitting through two more dreadfully boring classes, I finally made it to lunch. Here you can see all the types of people that go to my school. Everyone's chaotically loud, not listening to each other whatso-

I was broken out of my thoughts as someone loudly pulled out the chair to sit at my table.

It was her.

She sat directly in front of me and began to eat. I stared at her with a puzzled expression as she engulfed her food.

"You know staring is pretty rude, right?" She once again broke me out of my thoughts. I snapped out of it and immediately looked down at my tray of food. I suddenly grew nervous and uncertain of what I should say.

"You don't talk much do you Darius?" she asked quizzically.

Why the hell is she talking to me?

"Just a bit confused why you're sitting here." I said.

She lifted an eyebrow at me.

"I'm sorry I didn't know this table was limited to one." she said sternly.

"Certainly not what I meant, usually everyone finds themselves sitting with other people, hence why I sit alone." I replied.

She chuckled lightly. "Well, to your surprise i'm not everyone else Darius."

She remembers my name?

"Uh, you remember my name? How?" I asked.

"Well one, we are in the same first period class and two Mr.Hernandez practically barked at you for not raising your hand during attendance." She laughed.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

"Well there's the bell." she picked up her tray and headed to the garbage can "See you around Mr. Loner." She walked away with a huge grin on her face.

What just happened?

Finally it was the end of the day. As soon as I made my way home, I threw my bag to the side and just laid in bed.

Today was the first time someone actually talked to me & it had nothing to do with me helping them with their math homework. I laughed to myself remembering her quirky remarks. She seemed like she was pretty cool. As I thought about the funny situation, I gradually fell asleep without realizing.

No. No. No.

My body was shaking uncontrollably this time. My heart was beating unnaturally fast. I sat up in bed and tried breathing to bring myself back down to a calm state. It was now 7pm, sun was on it's way to set. Sunsets were always my favorite. I thought they were the most beautiful thing I could witness. It gave me hope & tranquility. It reminded be that even though there is darkness, there is always a bit of light too.